Louise Penny - Bury Your Dead

“And so you learned to be silent?” asked Gamache.

“If I wanted friends,” said Haslam, his words slamming into them. Was it some quirk of palate and brainpan and voice box so that the sound waves were magnified? “If I wanted to belong, yes, I learned never to raise my voice.”

“But that meant you could never speak at all, never be heard,” said Gamache.

“And what would you choose?” Haslam asked, his loud voice turning a rational question into an attack. “To speak up but chase people away, or to be quiet in company?”

Armand Gamache was silent then, looking down the long table at the solemn faces, and he knew Ken Haslam wasn’t the only one who’d faced that question, and made the same choice.

To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted.

But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?

Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.

“Perhaps you could explain the coffin in our basement,” Elizabeth broke the silence.

It seemed a reasonable request.

“As you know I came here to recover from my wounds.” Beauvoir wouldn’t let them think he didn’t know what they knew. A few villagers lowered their eyes, a few blushed as though Beauvoir had dropped his pants, but most continued to look at him, interested.

“But there was another reason. Chief Inspector Gamache asked me to look into the murder of the Hermit.”

That caused a stir. They looked at each other. Gabri, alone among them, stood up.

“He sent you? He believed me?”

“Hasn’t that case been solved?” said Hanna. “Haven’t you caused enough harm?”

“The Chief wasn’t satisfied,” said Beauvoir. “At first I thought he was wrong, that perhaps he’d been persuaded by the wishful thinking of Gabri here, who every day since Olivier was arrested sent the Chief a letter, containing the same question. Why did Olivier move the body?”

Gabri turned to Clara. “It was my query letter.”

“And we all know you’re quite a query,” said Ruth.

Gabri was bursting, beaming. No one else was.

“The more I investigated the more I began to think Olivier might not have killed the Hermit. But if not Olivier, then who?”

He stood with his hands on the back of a wing chair for support. Almost there. “We believed the motive had to do with the treasure. It seemed obvious. And yet, if it was the motive, why hadn’t the murderer taken it? So I decided to take a different tack. Suppose the treasure had very little to do with the killing of the Hermit? Except for one crucial feature. It led the murderer here, to Three Pines.”

They all stared at him, even Clara and Myrna. He hadn’t shared his conclusions with them. This close to trapping the killer he couldn’t risk it.

“If he hid all those things in his cabin, how could they lead anyone to Three Pines?” Old Mundin asked from the back of the room.

“They didn’t stay hidden,” Beauvoir explained. “Not all of them. The Hermit began to give some to Olivier in exchange for food and company and Olivier, knowing what he had, sold them. Through eBay, but also through an antique shop in Montreal on rue Notre-Dame.”

He turned to the Gilberts. “I understand you bought some things on rue Notre-Dame.”

“It’s a long street, Inspector,” said Dominique. “A lot of stores.”

“True, but like butchers and bakers, most people develop a loyalty for a specific antique shop, they go back to the same one. Am I right?”

He looked around. Everyone, except Gabri, dropped their eyes.

“Well, not to worry. I’m sure the owner will recognize your photographs.”

“All right, we used the Temps Perdu,” said Carole.

“Les Temps Perdu. Popular place. It happens to be where Olivier sold the Hermit’s things.” Beauvoir wasn’t surprised. He’d already spoken to the owner about the Gilberts.

“We didn’t know that’s where he went,” said Dominique, her voice sounding squeezed, sharp. “It just had nice things. Lots of people go there.”

“Besides,” said Marc. “We only bought the home here in the last year. We didn’t need antiques before that.”

“You might have gone in to look. People window-shop up and down rue Notre-Dame all the time.”

“But,” said Hanna Parra, “you said the Hermit wasn’t killed for his treasure. Then why was he killed?”

“Exactly,” said Beauvoir. “Why? Once I set aside the treasure other things took on more importance, mostly two things. The word ‘Woo,’ and the repetition of another word. ‘Charlotte.’ There was Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte Brontë, the Amber Room was made for a Charlotte, and the violin’s maker, his wife and muse was named Charlotte. We might, of course, be reading more into it than it deserved, but at the very least it deserved another look.”

“And what did you find?” The Wife asked.

“I found the murderer,” said Beauvoir.

Armand Gamache was tired. He wanted to go home to Reine-Marie. But now wasn’t the time to show weakness, now wasn’t the time to flag. Not when he was so close.

He’d told them about Chiniquy, he’d told them about James Douglas. About Patrick and O’Mara. And he showed them the books, the ones they’d unwittingly sold from their collection.

Including perhaps the most valuable volume in Canada today.

An original Huguenot bible belonging to Samuel de Champlain.

That had brought groans from the board members, but no recriminations. They were beginning to band together, to shore up their differences.

Things are strongest when they’re broken, Agent Morin had said, and Armand Gamache knew it to be true. And he knew he was witnessing a broken community, fractured by unkind time and events, and a temperament not, perhaps, best suited to change.

But it was pulling together, mending, and it would be very strong indeed because it was so broken. As Ken Haslam had been broken, by years of hushing. As Elizabeth MacWhirter had been worn down by years of polishing the façade. As Porter Wilson and Winnie and Mr. Blake had been shattered watching family, friends, influence, institutions disappear.

Only young Tom Hancock was unscathed, for now.

“So when Augustin Renaud came to speak to us a week ago he wanted to dig?” asked Mr. Blake.

“I believe so. He was convinced Champlain was buried in your basement, put there by James Douglas and Father Chiniquy.”

“And he was right,” said Porter, all bravado gone. “What’ll they do to us when they find out we’ve been hiding Champlain all these years?”

“We didn’t hide him,” said Winnie. “We didn’t even know he was there.”

“Try convincing the tabloids of that,” said Porter. “And even if most believe us, the fact is, it was still an Anglo conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy of two,” said Mr. Blake. “More than a hundred years ago. Not the whole community.”

“And you think if James Douglas had asked the community they’d have disagreed?” demanded Porter, making a more coherent argument than Gamache had thought him capable of. One thing was certain, he knew his community, as did Mr. Blake, who accepted that Porter, finally, was right.

“This is a disaster,” said Winnie and no one contradicted her, except Gamache.

“Well, not entirely. The coffin was Champlain’s, but the body inside wasn’t.”

Now they gaped at him. Dying men thrown a rope, a slender hope.

They were hushed. And finally Ken Haslam spoke, his voice filling the room, squeezing them all into the corners.

“Who was he?”